Is there anything better than a freshly baked batch of brownies? I think not.

As a first blog post, I thought it would be best to post about something EVERYONE loves – Brownies. Full stop.

For me, the search for the perfect brownies is a never-ending one. I have tried many recipes and simply could just never find the balance between ‘cakeyness’ and gooeyness. There is nothing worse than a brownie with the texture of a cake – why not just name it a cake then? A brownie should be gooey when you bite into it, but should be able to pull apart and have a few crumbs fall on your lap.

The other issue I had with finding the perfect brownie recipe was the cost of baking brownies. Unfortunately not everyone can afford a higher percentage cocoa chocolate and I wanted a recipe that makes use of the regular supermarket quality dark chocolate, as well as cocoa powder. Think cost-effectiveness.

You get all kinds of delicious brownies, for example peanut butter brownies, brownies with nuts, rocky road brownies, and the list goes on. There is something spectacular about well-made chocolate brownies. Sometimes we all just need something chocolate with extra chocolate to go with that. This recipe is exactly that – a batch of perfect brownies. These brownies are gooey yet crumbly and you will not be spending half of your weekly grocery budget to make them – it is truly a brilliant combination.

I found this go-to brownie recipe on Joy of Baking’s website and have tweaked it a little to ease planning, buying and measuring of ingredients.

For this recipe you can use any regular grocery store dark chocolate like Cadbury Bournville or Nestlé Albany. Obviously if you use chocolate with a higher percentage cocoa, the smoother your brownies will be.

For ease of execution, you can melt the butter and chocolate in the microwave, stirring every 20 seconds.

When it comes to baking, I prefer measuring my dry ingredients on a scale compared to measuring it with cups – it just gives a much more accurate measurement (salt is obviously the exception to the rule).

All things should bake on the centre rack on the oven. This is really important when you have a convention oven and there is no fan to evenly distribute heat around the oven.

Over-baking brownies is a no-no. This will steal the gooeyness of the brownies and will become cakey & dry. If you think the brownies are ready, they probably are.

My advice would be to share these brownies with only a few people. You will definitely go back for more!

Ingredients

160g dark chocolate (2 x chocolate slabs)

115g butter (cut into smaller pieces to decrease the time it takes to melt)

25g cocoa powder

1 cup granulated white sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla essence / extract (which ever you can afford)

3 large eggs

90g cake flour (cake wheat flour)

1 teaspoon salt

Optional: 125g dark or white chocolate (chopped into small chunks with a knife)

Instructions

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 180°C and make sure there is a baking rack in the centre of the oven.

Prepare an 18cm x 18cm or similar baking pan. Pray with non-stick spray and line out all side of the baking pan with baking paper. Make sure you have not confused baking paper with wax paper or you’ll have smoke escaping from your oven! (A mistake that has happened to me before!)

Melt the chocolate and butter in the microwave.

Once melted, stir in the cocoa powder and the granulated sugar.

Stir in the vanilla essence / extract and the eggs. Make sure that the mixture is well combined.